{"id":263644,"date":"2026-01-25T19:19:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T19:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/263644\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T19:19:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T19:19:09","slug":"revisiting-the-grammys-which-album-should-have-won-record-of-the-year-in-1991","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/263644\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting the Grammys: Which Album Should Have Won Record of the Year in 1991?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The very title of the award holds a great deal of potency: Record of the Year. In other words, of all the thousands of songs recorded in the previous year, this one is the very best. Not too shabby, which is why so many artists and their producers covet this particular Grammy Award. At the ceremonies held in 1991, the Record of the Year went to \u201cAnother Day In Paradise\u201d by Phil Collins. Did it deserve that accolade? We look back at the year\u2019s nominees and decide.<\/p>\n

\u201cVision Of Love\u201d by Mariah Carey<\/p>\n

Mariah Carey chose very well when it came to the first single of her career. \u201cVision Of Love\u201d, which Carey penned with Ben Margulies, is a well-written song, first and foremost. The production, done by Rhett Lawrence and Narada Michael Walden, doesn\u2019t try to do much. Instead, it lets Carey take center stage with a superbly measured performance, going from bluesy and bereft to emotive and cathartic at exactly the right pace.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother Day In Paradise\u201d by Phil Collins<\/p>\n

Phil Collins transformed from the drummer in a somewhat obscure art-rock outfit into one of the biggest pop stars on the planet. To make such a move, you have to change up your approach now and again. Instead of going for the crowd-pleasing vibe that he copped through much of the 80s, he went stark and scolding on \u201cAnother Day In Paradise\u201d. David Crosby<\/a> is in the mix somewhere, providing backing vocals.<\/p>\n

\u201cU Can\u2019t Touch This\u201d by MC Hammer<\/p>\n

The first-ever rap song to earn a Record of the Year nomination, \u201cU Can\u2019t Touch This\u201d acted as a kind of trailblazer. Typically for the Grammys, they dipped their toes into the hip-hop water with a song that was nice and safe for the mainstream. Plus, there was the \u201cSuper Freak\u201d sample, which made it instantly recognizable. Still, while Hammer was a crowd-pleaser as a record-maker, his flow couldn\u2019t hold a candle to some of the other MCs of the era.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom A Distance\u201d by Bette Midler<\/p>\n

The story goes that songwriter Julie Gold sent \u201cFrom A Distance\u201d to many artists, only to get rejection. She then sent it to Nanci Griffith for advice on how to improve it. Griffith loved it as it was and made the first recording. Once Bette Midler got hold of it, producer Arif Mardin added sweeping orchestration and backing vocals to play up the inspirational feel of it. Midler, meanwhile, gave a lovely performance, understated until it needs to go big.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing Compares 2 U\u201d by Sinead O\u2019 Connor<\/p>\n

Sinead O\u2019 Connor was known for her quirky songwriting early in her career, a critical favorite without a big hit. She found this song on a record by The Family, one of Prince\u2019s countless prot\u00e9g\u00e9 acts. The cavernous production (by O\u2019Connor, Nellee Hooper, and Chris Birkett) utilizes the subtly synthetic sounds to contrast the heartbreaking humanity of O\u2019Connor\u2019s performance. You\u2019ve probably heard it a million times, but if you\u2019re like us, you still get chills.<\/p>\n

The Verdict<\/p>\n

This is a pretty solid group of records up for Record of the Year in 1991, with not a clunker in the bunch (which you can\u2019t always take for granted with the Grammys). Still, we\u2019d throw out \u201cU Can\u2019t Touch This\u201d (a bit too calculated) and \u201cFrom A Distance\u201d (somewhat saccharine) off the bat.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother Day In Paradise\u201d is solid, but it\u2019s not at the level of some of Collins\u2019 early solo brooders, which it wants to emulate. \u201cVision Of Love\u201d is one of Carey\u2019s best-ever records, which is saying something considering it was her first. But the staggering performance by Sinead O\u2019Connor should have delivered the gold to \u201cNothing Compares 2 U\u201d that Grammy night.<\/p>\n

Photo by Lester Cohen\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The very title of the award holds a great deal of potency: Record of the Year. In other…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,21947,61,60,278,7492,5743],"class_list":{"0":"post-263644","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-grammy-awards","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-pop-music","14":"tag-rock-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}